Newsletter #417 (View other news stories)
Focus on safety at small businesses
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Thursday, 2 Jul 2009
 “No business can afford to have key people diverted from their real work to deal with a totally preventable issue,” says WorkSafe executive director John Merritt.
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WorkSafe Victoria is targeting a number of regional and metropolitan areas, with teams of up to 10 inspectors visiting as many workplaces as possible over one week.
The focus will be on the major risks to small businesses, including:
• Improving the safety of hazardous manual handling; slips, trips and falls; and plant, which make up around 60% of Victorian workers’ compensation claims;
• Equipment guarding;
• Getting people back to work as safely and sustainably as possible;
• Ensuring small businesses have WorkSafe injury insurance to financially protect the business if someone is injured or killed.
"In the tough times many people are facing, no business can afford to have key people diverted from their real work to deal with a totally preventable issue," says WorkSafe executive director John Merritt.
WorkSafe inspectors visited nearly 2,000 workplaces under both programs in 2008-2009 and issued 2,030 improvement notices requiring small businesses to fix specific safety issues.
Another 37 Prohibition Notices were issued, ordering work to stop immediately due to serious risks to health and safety.
To get started on improving safety, WorkSafe encourages small businesses to take advantage of its free and independent three-hour consultancy or the WorkSafe publication "12 ways to make small business safer".
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